Lansing State Journal

In-state freshmen and sophomores will pay 1.9% more, bringing annual tuition for a student taking 15 credits per semester to $12,862. In-state juniors and seniors, who already pay slightly higher tuition rates, will see a 3.6% increase to $14,291. Most other students will see their tuition rise by about 4%.

Introducing the increase, MSU President Lou Anna Simon ran through a list of alternate scenarios: if MSU’s state appropriation had increased at the rate of inflation, it could lower tuition by 21%; if its appropriation had increased at the same rate as the rest of the state budget, it could lower tuition by 18.5%; if it got the sort of per-student appropriation that Wayne State University and the University of Michigan got, it could lower tuition by 9%.

MSU officials justified the split increase earlier in the week by saying that it would ease the transition to campus. The logic was that, once students had arrived, they would have access to financial aid advisers, academic advisers and other support systems.

Some upperclassmen were upset with the plan.

“The thing that upsets me the most is the fact it could be split evenly but it’s not,” said Aaron Jordan, a junior who is studying journalism, adding that he has already given “a lot of my money to the university.”

The tuition increase was part of a $1.32-billion overall budget for the coming year that includes the university’s general fund, Michigan State University Extension, MSU AgBio Research and intercollegiate athletics.